ZO: AZ - Vik`s Chaat

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M AY 2 0 1 4
❖ SUNSET
Explosively flavorful
and addictively snackable, Indian street food
is the West’s newest
edible phenomenon.
by
margo true
A spread of street
food at Vik’s Chaat
Corner, Berkeley.
another counter. That’s intentional,
says Chopra delightedly: “Mayhem
should be part of the experience!”
The place feels, tastes, and smells like
India—there’s even a heady undercurrent of incense from the market at
throng of customers around the little
the far end.
cart drew me in. One night years ago in
But it also feels like Berkeley, with its
Delhi, near the Red Fort, I inched my
sleek signage, skylights, and comway to the front of the crowd and orpostable plates. Chopra moved Vik’s—
dered a snack from a street vendor. He
legendary in Berkeley for two decades—
handed me a steel plate—a landing pad
into this location four years ago, and his
for a series of small golden puffs. I
new menu, written for a crossover
popped one in my mouth, and it shatcrowd, turns unfamiliar dishes into
tered in a burst of cilantro-mint water.
adventures. “Chaat literally means ‘to
It was called pani puri, and it was the
lick,’ ” it explains, going on to say that
most thrilling snack I’d ever eaten.
these snacks were traditionally served
Back in the States, I kept an eye out
on leaves and were “so tongue-tickling
for the street foods I’d come to love
that one could not resist licking the last
while traveling over the years in India,
morsels from the leaf before discarding
especially the subcategory called chaat,
it.” Each snack is described through
explosively flavorful snacks based on
a memory of seeking it out, or seeing it
fried dough. But our Indian restauprepared, or gobbling it up: “At 3 p.m.
rants then—invariably named Bombay
sharp every day, the bhel puri wala
Palace or Taj Mahal—offered only stanwould pass our neighborhood ringing
dards like chicken tikka masala and
the bell on his pushcart …” By the time
naan. Instead, I found street food in
you order, you’re practically drooling.
Indian neighborhoods, lining up with
When I heard that Vik’s had inspired
homesick expats at counters in grocery
a new restaurant in Portland called Bolstores or strip-mall restaurants to orlywood Theater, I had to hop on a plane.
der what seemed, then, like a secret.
Snow had shut down the restaurant
That secret is out. Especially in the
(and pretty much all of Portland) when
West, where Asian culture runs deep
I arrived, but its owner and chef, Troy
and the food truck boom has primed
MacLarty, kindly unlocked the door
our palates with flavors from all over
and fired up the stove for me. During
the planet, Indian street snacks are
the couple of hours we were there, peomoving into the mainstream. “We don’t
ple kept showing up—in defiance of
Top: Amod Chopra at Vik’s Chaat Corner
have homogeneous tastes here,” says
citywide warnings to stay inside—and
in Berkeley. “There’s something very
zippy, zesty, and vibrant about street food,”
Amod Chopra, owner of Vik’s Chaat
hungrily peering in.
he says. Above: Customers at Vik’s.
Corner, in Berkeley. “So I don’t have to
I hoped the food wasn’t visible from
conform to steak and potatoes.” He
the door, because it was glorious. He
was the first of several Bay Area chefs
started with one of my favorite snacks,
to take street food as their muse, using
called papri chaat, a complex assembly
its bright flavors and hustle-bustle to create new kinds of Indian of wheat crackers, puffed rice, vegetables, chutneys, and yogurt, all
restaurants that are pure, delicious fun.
showered with spices, thread-thin fried noodle bits, and cilantro.
On a typical Saturday at Vik’s, some 1,400 people, at least half of He followed it up with a kathi roll (a flatbread with an egg scrambled
them non-Indians, pour in. You can watch your food being made, as on top of it, then rolled up with other ingredients) and vada pav (a
if you were on the street in India: One guy vigorously tosses bhel deep-fried potato–patty slider known as the “poor man’s burger” in
puri—a mix of puffed rice, cilantro, potatoes, and onions—with chut- Mumbai). “My proudest moment was when some Indian customers
neys. Another fries up lamb samosas. Huge balloons of dough called picked out the stall that I based my vada pav on,” he says.
bhature swell and crisp in hot oil. The crowd seems to flow in six diMacLarty learned about Indian food while working at Chez
rections at once, collecting food here, flatware over there, tea at yet Panisse, in Berkeley. A few times a month, he’d head over to Vik’s,
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M AY 2 0 1 4 ❖ S U N S E T
Photographs by
T H O M A S J. S T O RY & J O H N C L A R K
Like India itself, Portland’s
Bollywood Theater floods the
senses. Clockwise from
above, at the S.E. Division St.
location: Crisp chile-lime
okra and cucumber raita
(spiced yogurt); customers
order at the counter under
antique chandeliers and
lamps; Troy MacLarty brings
a top chef’s talent to Indian
snacks. Right and left:
Around the room, visual
vignettes—including a
toy auto-rickshaw, Bollywood movie posters, and
vintage photos from Kerala—
layer on the charm.
SUNSET
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Above: Tasty fun at Juhu Beach Club, here
in the form of the vada pav (mashed potato–patty
slider), with pickled onions and cilantro chutney.
Top right: Chef Preeti Mistry in Juhu’s open kitchen.
Opposite, top: Juhu, with jarred spices
and tiffins (Indian lunch boxes). Center: Juhu’s
Bombay sandwich, served grilled cheese–style,
with spicy tomato soup. Right: Sleek and
colorful Badmaash. “We wanted to do cool, casual,
funky, fresh Indian,” says co-owner Nakul
Mahendro. Left: Chai (spiced tea) at Badmaash.
Hand-lettering and illustrations by
S U P R I YA K A L I D A S
Juhu Beach Club in Oakland last year
(it’s named after a Mumbai beach famous
for chaat sellers). Mistry’s parents are
from India, but she was raised in the
States. “I’m making something that’s
very California, very Oakland, that is
what I want to eat—the beautiful foods
from the market with a street-food template.” This means, for instance, replacing the usual potatoes and chickpeas in a
snack known as sev puri with yams and
green apples in winter, green chickpeas
and nectarines in summer. She’s best
known for her pav, slider-size sandwiches. At the restaurant—an irrepressibly
happy place done in salmon pink and orange—I watch a nose-ringed cook plate
up a Holy Cow pav (short ribs braised
with cardamom) for me at the counter,
then sink my teeth in. Like many other
things on the menu, it’s not much like
what I’ve eaten in India, but it’s done so
well that it doesn’t matter.
Across the bay, Curry Up Now interprets Indian street food even more loosely, with a Mexican fusion spin. The
chain’s storefronts have a frat-house feel,
with a game often playing on a big screen
and people lining up for paratha flat— P R E E T I M I S T R Y, J U H U B E A C H C L U B , O A K L A N D
bread quesadillas, or hangover food like
the UnBurger, a smashed samosa on a
bun slathered with curry. I’m a sucker,
though, for the Sexy Fries—sweet-potato
fries covered with cheese and chicken
loving the spicy, comforting flavors there. “It replaced Mexican food tikka masala. “We wanted to make it more approachable to order
for me,” he says. After moving to Portland, he taught himself to cook Indian food,” owner Akash Kapoor says. “No 20-page menu where
Indian food from books and took a three-week trip to India. Then, in you’re wondering what’s the difference between the tomato-onion
2012, he opened Bollywood. “We got crushed immediately.” With just sauce and the onion-tomato sauce.”
56 seats, he was serving 450 people a day. Barely two years later, he’s
And then there’s the new wave’s resident badass—almost literalopened a second, larger location.
ly. Badmaash (“rascal” in Hindi)—opened last summer in Los AngeAs you might expect, Bollywood Theater does show Hindi mov- les by Nakul Mahendro; his father, Pawan (who is also the chef );
ies, but that’s just part of its evocation of India, so personal and and his brother, Arjun—blends the family’s great sense of humor
complete that the place seems more like an art installation than a with their sheer love of street food. “We’re all a little chubby, and
restaurant. Surfaces look weathered, as though worn down by heat whenever we go to Bombay, as soon as we land, we’ll run out and
and time. Old movie posters and nostalgic photos of Indian families get papri chaat,” says Nakul. He describes chaat, with its lively
plaster the walls. Walk in the bathroom, and you’ll be watching a dance of flavors and textures, as “an Indian 5-Hour Energy shot.”
raucous video of Indian street life (“I wanted to put it in the most Badmaash’s menu plays around with the standards—with dishes like
claustrophobic part of the restaurant,” MacLarty says). Every detail Badass Chicken Tikka—and serves it up with style, a terrific list of
is meant to transport whoever comes in.
local beers, and a dash of kitsch (one wall doubles as a movie screen
for old Bollywood films).
FOR OTHER CHEFS who are taking their lead from Indian street food,
I could never have imagined, all those years ago in Delhi, that
authenticity isn’t exactly the point. “My idea was never to replicate someday I’d be eating “chickpeas & chips” (papri chaat), with a craft
what I’ve had in India, but to take inspiration from what I’ve experi- beer in my hand and the Beastie Boys playing in the background.
enced,” says Preeti Mistry, a former Google chef who opened Indian street food as a bona fide cool scene: That’s a thrill.
BOTTOM LEFT: LISA CORSON (2)
“I’m making something that’s very
California ... beautiful foods from the market
with an Indian street-food template.”
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85
RR GGUUIIDDE T O
YO U
Diced
tomatoes
Dahi
Yogurt
These snacks typically rely on several
standard ingredients but in varying
combinations and amounts, making
each dish a different experience.
Cooked
chickpeas
ALOO TIKKI
Fried spiced potato
patties; often
served with chole
(chickpea curry).
Papri
Fried
wheat
crackers
Murmura
Puffed
rice
Chaat masala
Tangy, earthy blend
of ground dried
green mangoes,
black salt, cumin,
coriander, red chile,
ginger, and other
spices
Hot
cilantromint
chutney
BHEL PURI
A puffed-rice concoction featuring diced
potatoes, tomatoes,
crisp raw onions, and
chickpeas; dressed with
cilantro-mint chutney.
SAMOSA C HOLE
Fried pastries usually filled
with either spicy peas and
potatoes, or ground lamb;
served with cilantro-mint chutney and/or chickpea curry.
DAHI PAPRI C HA AT
Arguably the most
complex chaat, it’s a
layering of wheat
crackers with the same
vegetables as bhel
puri (and/or sprouted
lentils and beans),
copiously drizzled with
cilantro-mint chutney,
tamarind chutney,
yogurt, and (phew!) a
snappy sour chaat
masala and sev on top.
Plus cilantro!
Sprouted dal
Legumes like
lentils, peas,
and beans
VADA PAV
As popular in Mumbai as hot
dogs in New York, this is a
fried patty of mashed potato
spiced with green chile, ginger,
and cumin, served with
chutneys on a buttered bun.
Diced
boiled
potatoes
Cilantro
WHERE
TO GO
Our favorite Indian
street-food restaurants in the West:
LOS ANGELES
K ATH I ROLL
Similar to a burrito: flaky wheatflour paratha
(flatbread) with
an egg cooked
into a creamy
scramble right
on top, then
rolled up with
any of several
fillings. A specialty of Kolkata.
badmaash
$$; 108 W. Second
St.; badmaashla.com.
PORTL AND
bollywood
theater
$$; 2039 N.E. Alberta St. and 3010 S.E.
Division St.; bolly
woodtheaterpdx.com.
S .F. BAY ARE A
SE V PURI
Little stacks
of mashed
potato on papri
crackers, showered with
chutneys and
lots of crisp sev.
Spicysweet
tamarind
chutney
Sev
Threadlike
chickpeaflour noodles,
fried and
broken into
bits
DAH I BATATA PURI
Like dahi papri chaat, except
the crackers are puffed into
crunchy balloons that hold the
vegetables and chutneys. Eat
immediately, before they wilt.
curry up now
$; curryupnow.com
for locations.
juhu
beach club
$$; 5179 Telegraph
Ave., Oakland;
juhubeachclub.com.
vik’s chaat
corner
PANI PURI
The same fried puffs
as for dahi batata
puri, filled with
bits of potato and
chickpeas, a dab of
tamarind chutney,
and lots of spiced
water; very refreshing when they burst
in your mouth.
$; 2390 Fourth St.,
Berkeley; vikschaat
corner.com.
DIGITAL BONUS
Get street-snack
recipes from this story,
plus an expanded list of
restaurants, at sunset.
com/indianfood.
HOW TO
EAT PANI
PURI
Beloved in North India,
this snack is called gol gappa
in and around Delhi and
puchka in Kolkata. A good
puri (puff) will be shattercrisp, with spicy pani (water).
STEP 1 Make a
small hole in the top
of the pani puri
with your thumb.
STEP 2 Drop in a
few bits of potato
and chickpeas.
STEP 3 Drizzle in
some sweet-sour
tamarind chutney.
STEP 4 Dunk into water spiked with spices
(or pour it in). Pop into
your mouth.
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